


Brooklyn

by Avonya



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: And two teen girls, Character Study, Gen, Minor Character Death, Various original characters to fill the story, a librarian named ruth, a shield agent named max, including - Freeform, is this an excuse to write more marvel characters being in band?, not on screen so don’t worry, trombone, yes - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-06 19:45:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17945951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avonya/pseuds/Avonya
Summary: “Steve,” Ruth said, as he looked over a wall of books for one to stand out. She was putting them away a few shelves over. “Do you have any hobbies?”“I’m sorry?”“Well,” she said. “I see you here all the time, and I’m worried.”That was true, he supposed. ‘All the time’ wasn’t an exaggeration. He was in the library every day, for at least four hours. Maybe five. He didn’t have a lot to do, and not a lot of places to go, either. He had the library and the gym.“I like books,” he said weakly.(Steve is freshly defrosted.)





	Brooklyn

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Youngblood Brass Band’s song Brooklyn.

SHIELD doesn’t quite keep him locked away. Not after the first month, or so, anyways. They let him leave the little SHIELD made and decorated apartment to go on SHIELD sponsored activities followed by SHIELD employed people with guns at their waists.

(Steve really isn’t bitter, really, he’s just sad.)

So Steve got into a routine. He goes on a walk until the unfamiliar familiarity hurts to much to continue, gets coffee and a muffin at the nearest small coffee shop he can. The big ones, the chains ones, don’t feel right to him. Steve got over the ‘This is _how_ much?’ knee-jerk reaction he has to the point where it doesn’t show on his face as he hands a five (a _five!_ ) to whatever barista is working. Sometimes he sits and draws or reads at a back table. Sometimes, when he felt particularly _something_ , he bought a muffin for the SHIELD agent following him. He always took it.

Steve’s sketchbook is full of juxtaposition: here; his old apartment, there; a towering skyscraper made solely from glass. Here; one of the dancers from the old Star Spangled Man show, because everyone else from back then (from _home,_ from _reality_ ) hurts too much to draw. There; a girl with colorful tattoos covering her arms and neck, holding onto the hand of another girl covered in sharp-looking jewelry. A stray dog, one he remembered used to hang around the deli. A food cart.  

The nice SHIELD assigned follower (Max, he’d said, no last name given. Max is all sharp corners and pale skin and dark eyes, and is so painfully easy to track through crowds that Steve wondered why they let a rookie be the one wrangling Captain America, before he wondered if maybe someone noticeable was the point) comes up to Steve after maybe a month of this, asks if he’d like to add some variety.

“No,” Steve said. “I’m alright.” 

So Max let him continue like that for a few more days, until he came up to Steve again, breaking the defined ten yard shadow he’d always kept, and asked again. Max took the muffin Steve gave him and waited. 

“Yeah,” Steve said. “Alright.” 

Max took him to a library. A little neighborhood one, not too far from Steve’s SHIELD apartment. Fairly new, by the looks of it.

“I’ve gone here since I was a kid,” Max said. The, so it won’t be weird if I’m in here a lot, went unsaid. “The librarians are all really nice.” 

“You going to be following me around?” Steve asked. 

Max grinned, the first smile directed at him that Steve had seen in a long time, and said, “SHIELD’s decided that you can have a longer leash. Still need to keep your phone on you at all times, of course, and be warned; we will be listening.” 

Steve was mildly surprised that they’d even warn him. He assumed they’d always been listening. 

“But other than that,” Max continued, “you’re basically free reign. I’ll be around the neighborhood, in case you need me.” 

And Max waved, and left. Steve watched and counted the feet until he left the thirty, and for a while after.

Huh. 

Steve went into the library.

 

-

 

“Honey,” a voice beside him said. Steve startled. 

The voice belonged to a small black woman with slightly faded dark hair, done in braids and held out of her face with a cloth patterned with flowers. Her name tag read ‘Ruth’.

A librarian, then.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said. “Is it closing time?”

“Not nearly,” Ruth said. “You just looked very lost, for a second there.”

Longer than a second. 

“Do you need any help finding your way around, or finding a book?”

“Yes,” Steve said, after a second. “I haven’t been in a library in a while. And I’m not really sure where to start reading, either.”

Ruth looked Steve up and down. She hummed. Her eyes were sharp. 

“You look like the type of person to enjoy history books. And,” after another look, “maybe high fantasy. Or mystery.”

Steve agreed and let himself be led off. He figured he better find out about what he missed, anyways. 

He left with a history of the United States (“You look the type, that’s all,”), of technological innovations (advertised as ‘from compass to cosmic!’), and The Hobbit.

Max met him at the library’s door as soon as he was outside. 

“Got anything good?” Max asked as they walked back to Steve’s SHIELD assigned apartment. 

“I think so.”

“That’s good. SHIELD’s longer leash deal includes you getting to go pretty much wherever you want now. In New York. In the city. Don’t try to go to Buffalo or something. But there’s a lot to do here, so I think you’ll enjoy it.”

“Alright,” Steve said, neutrally. 

“And you might not be seeing me that much anymore,” Max added. “I’ve been moved to the Helicarrier.” He said it proudly.

“A promotion?” Steve guessed. He’d never heard of a ‘helicarrier’ before and wondered if Max was even supposed to say that. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” Max said, grinning. “Don’t worry, I’ll probably see you soon.” 

“Looking forward to it.”

Steve wondered if Max thought they were friends or if it was just an act. He wondered if they could even be considered friends. Steve supposed max knew him pretty well, even if they’d only talked a couple of times.

At his SHIELD apartment, he started The Hobbit. He’d read it already, of course. So he knew it was good. Very familiar. A little bit painful, so he put it aside after the first couple chapters and started on the history. He had a lot to learn.

 

-

 

“Steve,” Ruth said, as he looked over a wall of books for one to stand out. She was putting them away a few shelves over. “Do you have any hobbies?” 

“I’m sorry?”

“Well,” she said. “I see you here all the time, and I’m worried.” 

That was true, he supposed. ‘All the time’ wasn’t an exaggeration. He was in the library every day, for at least four hours. Maybe five. He didn’t have a lot to do, and not a lot of places to go, either. He had the library and the gym. That was it.

“I like books,” he said weakly.

“Hmm. If you need it,” Ruth said, voice calm and clear, “we’re hiring. Always something to do in a library.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Steve protested, before realizing what Ruth was saying. I’m not homeless, Ruth.”

She hummed again. “But do you need a job?”

“I don’t need a job. Hey, for all you know, maybe I married rich, and will never need a job again. Maybe I could buy the library with my wife’s money.”

Ruth laughed. “Sure, Steve. Pay for my hip while you’re at it. But seriously, you have any hobbies?”

He thought. “Reading, clearly. I draw. I box.”

That was pretty much it. 

“You ever think about playing an instrument? My son plays. He plays French horn, you ever think about playing French horn?”

“Never,” Steve said. Never had the lungs for it before, and then he went to war, and then he went to water. He supposed he probably didn’t have the lungs when he was under water either.

A teenage girl, who had been perusing the shelves near where Steve and Ruth stood, popped around the side of a tall bookshelf made taller by how short she way. She had blue hair and light skin, and was wearing a long flannel shirt.

“You don’t seem like a French horn,” she said, doing nothing to hide that she had been eavesdropping. “You seem like a trumpet. You look like a trumpet,” she added, no explanation given.

“What?” Steve asked.

“Like a trumpet player?” Ruth asked. She looked up from her rack of books to face the girl.

“Isn’t that what I said?”

“No,” her companion said, joining her with a stack of books propped against her hip. She had darker skin than the girl with blue hair, and her hair was shorter. “It’s what you meant, but not what you said. Hey, man, you should play trombone.”

“Why trombone?” Steve asked.

She shrugged. “Why not? The world needs more trombones, not trumpets,” at that, she elbowed her friend, “besides, you look like a trombone.” 

With that, the two left, hand in hand. Steve wondered if they were lesbians. He hoped they felt safe. That was one of the good parts about the new world, he thought.

“They’re right, you know,” Ruth said. “You should try it.”

 

-

 

Steve got all the way to asking SHIELD for trombone lessons, and all the way to actually taking three, before the aliens fell out of the sky and SHIELD needed Captain America, not old man Steve, the inexperienced trombonist.

A good man died. A lot of good men died, actually, good men and women. SHIELD agents. Civilians. Steve found the Avengers (was that really what they were calling themselves? Was that really what other people were calling them?) abrasive at first. Shockingly different and new and strange. And they closed the tear in the sky and they killed the aliens and they became friends.

Howard (no, no, Tony, Howard’s gone and Tony is his own person and also older than him, which felt wrong, being younger than your friends son) asked them to move in with him. Tony wanted all the Avengers to live together. Steve told him that he wanted to think a little. Tony readily agreed. 

“Think about it,” he said. Pointed a metal covered finger to Steve. “Seriously, Cap. Think about all the fun training games we can do.”

Steve found a letter on the kitchen table in the SHIELD apartment. Notifying him of Max’s death.

No date, or anything. Just a brief message telling him that Agent Max Carter has died. Carter was a common enough last name, and it’s not like he shared any  resemblance with Peggy, but still. It hurt.

Steve went to the library. No memorial for Max, not for any of the people who died during the attack, not yet, but the library was still standing and that was good enough. Steve placed flowers on the cracked stone steps. 

“Hey, Captain,” Ruth called. 

Steve turned slowly. She waved.

“Secrets out now, I suppose.”

“Yeah. Nothing you can do other than be who you are.”

“How long have you known?”

She shrugged, and walked to him. Her coat was covered in dirt. Steve wondered where she was when the aliens attacked.

“Almost immediately. But that doesn’t matter. Library’s closed,” she said. “Staff don’t want to go to work yet. Can’t blame them. But I can let you in, if you’d like.”

“I don’t want to go inside,” Steve said. “I came for,” and he trailed off. He pointed to the flowers. “The, uh, SHIELD agent assigned to me, the one who showed me the library, died. He said he was from around here.”

Ruth smiled, the kind of smile that shared pain made softer, not harder. “Sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah.” 

They stood in silence for a while, shoulder to shoulder, looking at the crumpled bouquet on the chipped stone. It didn’t feel like enough, but Steve didn’t know Max that well. Soldiers die young, he thought. 

“Tony Stark asked if I’d like to move in with him. He asked all the other people from the attack.” Steve didn’t know exactly why he said it. 

Ruth hummed. “Do you want to? Think you’ll miss your apartment?” 

“It doesn’t feel like my apartment. Nothing's felt like my home since the forties.”

“Then go,” Ruth said, simple as that. “Try and see if the Avengers can make it feel like home.” 

“Alright,” Steve said. And he told Tony yes. Steve took his stuff with him. Everything worth keeping fit into a duffle bag, except the trombone.

And he kept playing. Steve kept up with the lessons, and practicing, and Ruth and then two girls were right. It made him feel better. It made him feel like there was something new worth doing after the ice. The music made him feel more whole.

So Steve toasted to the lives of those he lost, from before onward, Carter to Carter, and kept living.

**Author's Note:**

> Was this an excuse to write another marvel character playing an instrument? Yes, duh. 
> 
> I wrote and posted this on my phone, so if anything’s formatted wrong, tell me and I can try to fix it. Or just leave comments anyway ;)


End file.
